Senate approves vehicle rental tax for Orleans, Jefferson

BATON ROUGE -- The Senate voted 23-1 Thursday for a measure that would dedicate the entire 3 percent state excise tax on vehicle rentals for use by Orleans and Jefferson parishes, if voters approve.

File photoSen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans

The chamber approved Senate Bill 351 by Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, in an amended form then sent it to the House for more debate.

The House passed a similar bill by Rep. Tony Ligi, R-Metairie, but that measure calls for the two parishes to keep just .5 percent of the revenues with voter approval.

The only vote against Murray's bill came from Sen. Jonathan Perry, R-Kaplan.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration did not push for a renewal of the 22-year-old excise tax on vehicle rentals so it will expire June 30. The state now gets 2.5 percent of the tax and local governments, including Orleans and Jefferson, get the remainder.

Murray's bill started out carving out the 2.5 percent for the two parishes but amended it to include the entire amount.

At 2.5 percent, the tax would generate about $2.7 million for Jefferson Parish and about $265,000 for Orleans Parish, according to Greg Albrecht, chief economist with the Legislative Fiscal Office, the arm of the Legislature that analyzes the cost of bills. The .5 percent would generate about $544,000 for Jefferson and about $53,000 for Orleans, he estimated.

Sen. David Heitmeier, D-Algiers, added an amendment that would cut in the Gretna Cultural Center for the Arts for a small portion of the Jefferson Parish tax money.

As Murray's bill is now structured, all money collected from the tax in Orleans Parish would go to road improvements and beautification projects.

In Jefferson Parish, one-third of the receipts would go to the city of Kenner for arts and recreation programs, and two-thirds would go to the Jefferson Performing Arts Society for programs on both sides of the river, with one third going to the Westwego Performing Arts Center and one-sixth to the Gretna Cultural Center.

Ligi's bill, which also requires a vote of the people before becoming effective in either parish, is now pending in a Senate committee, and Murray's in a House committee.

Rubye Noble, director of the Jefferson Parish legislative delegation, said that the Kenner City Council and the Jefferson Parish Council have adopted resolutions endorsing Ligi's bill at the .5 percent level.

"There now have to be some further discussions," Noble said of the variance in the two bills.

Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5810.